Let me say that again. A federal appeals court ruled that California’s so-called urban open carry ban, a ban that affects 95% of the state’s population, violates the Second Amendment. And the reasoning they used is exactly what we’ve been saying all along. California likes to pretend it has a licensing system. But that’s the spin. Here’s the reality. And the Ninth Circuit laid it out in black and white. If you live in a California county with more than 200,000 people, and that’s almost everybody in California, open carry is a flat-out ban. No license, no exception, no workaround.

It doesn’t matter if the firearm is loaded. It doesn’t matter if it’s unloaded. It doesn’t matter if you’re trained, vetted, or a law-abiding citizen. Open carry is a crime. They don’t do anything about the criminals, though. But only about 5% of Californians live in counties where open carry is theoretically allowed. And even then, only if you can somehow convince a local authority to issue a permit that, according to the court, California can’t even document issuing one. Now, that’s not regulation. That’s prohibition. And the Ninth Circuit saw right through it. The man who brought this case, Mark Baird, is exactly who gun control advocates pretend doesn’t even exist.

He’s a law-abiding citizen, a legal firearm owner, a rural resident of rural California, and a resident of a rural California county. He didn’t ask for special treatment. He asked to exercise what the Constitution explicitly protects, the right to keep and bear arms, not hide them, not ask for permission to defend himself, not to confine that the right that he has has to be into his living room, but to carry them. Firearms. And California told him no. So he sued them. And here’s where it gets important for every gun owner, not just Californians.

The court applied the Supreme Court’s Bruin framework. And under Bruin, the test is simple. If the Second Amendment’s plain text covers the conduct, and it clearly does, then the government must prove that the restriction is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Not public safety arguments, not modern fear-mongering, not times have changed, history. And that’s where California completely collapsed. The Ninth Circuit didn’t mince words. The historical record makes it unmistakably plain. The historical record makes it unmistakably plain that open carry is part of America’s history and America’s tradition. At the founding, it was protected.

At the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, it was protected. In fact, the court emphasized something gun controllers hate to admit. For most American history, open carry was the default. There were laws about misuse. There were laws about brandishing. There were even bans on concealed carry in many states. But open carry, that was understood as the constitutional core of the right to keep and bear arms. Massachusetts, you’re an open carry state. Some people don’t even know that. Courts in the 1800s were very explicit about this. They said concealed carry could be restricted, but banning open carry would violate the Constitution.

Why? Because openly bearing arms was seen as legitimate self-defense by a free citizen, not criminal behavior. And that historical consensus never changed. California just decided to ignore it. California argued and dissenting judges repeated the same tired talking point we’ve all heard. Well, you can still carry concealed, so what’s the problem? The Ninth Circuit obliterated that argument. History does not treat open carry as concealed carry or as an interchangeable option. It never has. The idea that the government can ban one constitutionally protected method of bearing arms simply because it allows another is not supported by history.

The court even pointed out that Bruin itself said that states could not ban concealed carry only if open carry remained available. The court even pointed out that Bruin itself said states could ban concealed carry only if open carry remained available, not the other way around. I disagree with that, but that’s what they said. California flipped the Constitution on its head, and the court said, no, this ruling matters far beyond California. Before I continue to tell you what the Ninth Circuit just said, check out this sale we’re running right now at Blackout Coffee.

Check out blackoutcoffee.com slash gng. Take part of this sale. Stock up. It’s the right time to add a whole bunch to your cupboards, and we appreciate you at Blackout Coffee for the support over the years. Our system, there’s no code needed for this sale. Just put it in, take care of itself. Time is running out. I appreciate you all. Thank you for supporting us for so many years. Now, because what the Ninth Circuit just said explicitly, they said this, that you cannot use licensing schemes, population thresholds, or geographic tricks to erase a constitutional right for most people while pretending it still exists on paper.

A license that is never issued is not a license. A right that applies to five percent of the population is not a right, and a ban that covers 95 percent of the citizens is still a ban, no matter how you dress it up. That principle applies everywhere. This decision confirms what we have said from day one, that the Second Amendment protects all bearable arms, and it protects the right to bear them, not just to own them, in theory. History matters, guys and gals. The Constitution matters, and the Bunk review, they’re going to have a stay issued until the case proceeds, but we haven’t heard that as of yet.

But thank you so much for helping us get the word out. This is the new tavern. This is back in the colonial days, in the 1700s, they had taverns where they spread the news. Here we have hopefully guns and gadgets and others like us that are pressing this news out, and we hope that you will do your part and share this with people. Share it on other platforms. Tell each other at work at the water cooler or whatever. Tell people what’s really going on. Subscribe to the channel. Hit the thumbs up. It really helps.

It goes a long way, and let me know down below what you think about what happened in California, and what do you think will happen going forward. Appreciate y’all. God bless you. I’ll see you in the next one. Stay safe. Stay armed. Stay free. Take care. [tr:trw].

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